A mobile operating system (OS) is the operating system that is executed by a mobile device such as a smartphone, tablet, or personal digital assistant (PDA). Existing mobile OSs include Apple® iOS® operating system, Android® offered by Google Inc. located in Mountain View, Calif. and Windows Phone 8® offered by Microsoft Corporation located in Redmond, Wash. Multiple mobile OSs can be installed on the same mobile device at the same time so that features of one installed mobile OS can be provided to the mobile device at one time and other features of another installed mobile OS can be provided at another time. Multiple OSs can execute on the same mobile device through the use of a Virtual Machine Monitor (i.e., hypervisor) or OS switching. OS switching exploits rapid suspend and resume capabilities of OSs to switch between different mobile OSs installed on the same mobile device. One mobile OS being switched out goes through a suspend process to enter a sleep mode, which saves critical portions of the system's state to system memory, but the hardware is not turned off. Instead, OS switching software boots or resumes a different, second mobile OS installed on the mobile device. During the execution of another OS installed on the same mobile device, none of the critical state saved by the first OS is modified. OS switching allows the user to suspend the one mobile OS and its applications and switch to the other mobile OS with the activation of a button, and then return to the one mobile OS with another activation of the button. For example, a user in an office environment prefers one mobile OS that has more security features than another mobile OS and that has integrated utilities such as anti-virus, services including a mail client, and applications including a word processing program, whereas the same user in a home environment prefers the other mobile OS, which has features advantageous to gaming and other entertainment. In response to moving from the office environment to the home environment, the user can switch the mobile device from the one mobile OS to the other mobile OS. Known techniques for OS switching are driven by a selection by the user as to which mobile OS should be manually booted. There is a resistance to a user making the selection of a different mobile OS because a switch of the OS involves time interruption, a change of displays, and a change of applications, thereby creating an unwanted break in the user's flow of activity.
U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2009/0089569 to Baribault et al. teaches a system that boots an OS or group of OSs in stages to provide a user with rapid access to mobile device features. Available OSs in the mobile device are identified and one of the available OSs is selected for booting in stages. The selection of the OS is done by the user, or according to contextual awareness and policies. The contextual awareness can include location, time-of-day, motion, physiological factors or environmental factors. The stages of the OS are defined to enhance or optimize boot time in accordance with user preferences, user actions, or context.